


you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling

by symmetrophobic



Series: inception!au [1]
Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Inception!AU, M/M, cheesecake mild, mild violence but really really mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5350883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symmetrophobic/pseuds/symmetrophobic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a hackneyed, but nonetheless rather enjoyable, tale of a point man and a forger. got7 inception!au</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Mark meets Jackson, it ends with him dying.

Of course, this isn’t his first brush with Jackson, per se. He knows Jackson, sure, through case files and extensive research and a couple of trips in and out of Interpol. He knows Jackson as the supposed miracle worker Jaebum keeps telling him about, the one that’ll guarantee success for a majority of their future “jobs”. He knows everything about Jackson, except what he’s like.

They’d done a standard interview- Jaebum had approached Jackson, pitched the job to him, calm and relaxed, just like he’d done for Mark. It turns out Jackson specializes- he’s a forger, and Mark’s later research confirms this. Then Jaebum had taken his leave, saying they’d  _contact him later_.

(Contact meaning, of course, that they’d knock him out and chuck him into the dream state with one of them to see if he’d be able to get what was going on before they extracted something from him.)

Mark’s job, then, as a stranger to Jackson, had been to extract a secret from Jackson. He’d gone under with Bambam, Jaebum’s protégé and a bright junior back from college, an entire strategy laid out in his head, positively sure he’d have to go easy on Jackson if this guy were to have any chance at all of success.

If he’s to be honest, back at that time, he hadn’t exactly been all too comfortable with the idea of someone else joining them. Before then it’d just been him and Jaebum doing small-time jobs, then Bambam, at first when they’d needed an architect and Jaebum felt like being lazy, then for all future jobs after that because it turns out Bambam’s even better than Jaebum.

Mark had liked it that way. Change had never really appealed to him, especially changes in people, especially in a job like this. The more links to a chain, the higher the probability it’ll break. Because everyone knows a chain’s only as strong as its weakest link.

So he goes under with Jackson and Bambam that day not expecting much. Of course, this ultimately leads to his downfall, however you want to look at it. Because he realises Jackson is, unfortunately, really good.

(That’s completely up for interpretation as well.)

*

They’re in South Korea, in a half-forgotten corner of Daejeon, where Jackson used to study. The student hostel they’re in is musty and the air is as stiff and stagnant as a layer of wet fabric over their noses, but Jackson seems right at home.

“Seen the news lately?” Bambam pipes up from the weathered old couch in the common area. Mark winces from the water cooler, where he’s filling up his bottle. He hopes the kid’s as much of a natural in extraction as he is in architecture- they’d never let him handle the subjects  _directly_ , per se, till now, because he’d been too young and they’d honestly never found the need to. But now’s as good a time as any to start training.

“News?” Jackson’s in a loose college tee and shorts, flipping through a magazine indifferently. “You mean like the riots?”

“No, the break-ins!” Bambam shakes his head, still ever chirpy and curious, looking up from a paper over the wicker coffee table. “They’re everywhere!”

“Everywhere?” Jackson leans over to take a look, disinterest still evident.

“You’d think places would have more security,” Mark sits beside Bambam, taking a long drink from his bottle. He watches Jackson eye him for a moment, before shrugging. They’d scrounged some information from the people they’d spoken with, projections of Jackson’s subconscious, and the changes to the layout of the rooms and the people, but Mark still needs something vital filled in in the equation before he can make any use of all that. “These people must be losing a lot.”

“Can’t be helped,” he says, leaning back, half a smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth. “They just aren’t protecting their stuff well enough.”

_And I suppose you would know all about that._

“Tragic,” Mark says instead, a little more drily than intended. “Look, this guy lost his entire savings in one go,” he pauses. “I’d choose a place a lot safer than the cabinets if I were him.”

“Somewhere no one’d think to hide their shit,” Jackson shrugs.

He’s watching Jackson’s eyes, waiting for some sign of movement, but when nothing comes he decides to speak himself.

“The school ought to think about investing in safes of some sort,” he continues.

“You think?” Jackson scoffs. “They wouldn’t be able to invest  _anything_  if they tried. Capital flow into this place is dry as anything. They might as well start pouring in scholarships for everyone.”

“That’d come in handy,” Mark nudges Bambam gently with his knee, and the younger boy launches into a barrage of complaints about the school, one Jackson reciprocates with only half-hearted interest, on cue, while he excuses himself.

Mark traipses down the corridor, walking up a flight of stairs to the next level, Bambam’s detailed instructions on the labyrinth he’d created clear as day in his head. The layout’s getting cleverer and more solid each time- Mark makes a mental note to compliment Bambam once they’re finished proving Jaebum wrong about how great Jackson is.

The men’s common toilet for the dorms is dingy, floors covered in an ever present layer of water and greying footprints, with the less-than-welcome smell of ammonia and detergent saturating the room, but Mark notices none of these, instead studying the room. What had been the clue they’d gotten again?

_Dry?_

There’d been visual and verbal cues, things they’d picked up in the people that represented Jackson’s subconscious, and Mark’s again grateful for the Mandarin his parents had drilled into him as a child. It’s obvious from the language and the mannerisms of his subconscious, even here, that Jackson takes pride in his heritage- something honestly quite rare. But Mark’s not one to judge, he supposes.

The good news: it honestly isn’t that hard checking all the dry places in somewhere this wet. But after Mark’s tried the ceiling, the walls and all the stalls, he’s come to the conclusion that there is not one single dry spot in this entire bathroom. It’s unnaturally damp, like a sauna, the room stuffed to bursting with molecules of steam, no matter how long he holds the door open to let the humidity out. But all this does is clue him into the fact that this room  _means_  something, that this room holds the answer.

He’s digging through the cleaner’s closet once more, determined not to let this punk get the best of him down under here,  _his_  territory, when he spots something under all the cleaning appliances in the corner, a big, blue machine shaped like a snail’s shell, with a vent at the end, the electric cable behind it wound around its handle like a snake.

Mark doesn’t think much of it at first- then it starts to stand out once he thinks about it properly. It’s something they use to dry floors in hotels and shopping malls, a machine that blows hot air all in sheets over the floor, and why would a school as backward as this have something this luxurious?

Mark’s hands are shaking with anticipation as he brushes the brooms and mops away impatiently, praying that Bambam’s able to distract Jackson for as long as possible, before dragging the blower out of the debris. It’s unlabelled, and now he sees how different it is from the other pails and bottles of detergent, like the contrast in colours is glowing, almost like a correct clue in a video game. Mark lugs it over to the sinks, where he remembers seeing a rotting old power point beside the metal pipes, and plugs it in, before turning it on.

With a few sputtering coughs, the machine churns to life, rumbling as it sends a layer of hot air gushing over the floor, and Mark finally gets it.

_Anywhere. The safe can be anywhere in this room, as long as it’s the driest place._

He taps his foot impatiently as the machine does its work, and within moments a spread of tiles are almost baked dry, mud and dirt caking on the floor, and Mark knows he’s done something right. He begins stepping on the tiles, one by one, with the tip of his foot, and the middle tile suddenly gives with a distinct  _click_ under his foot.

 _Jaebum’s going to be sore for weeks_ , Mark thinks drily as he pops open the tile, dextrous fingers gliding over the glossy silver buttons of the safe, glinting against the polished black metal. And then, _he owes me twenty bucks._

Mark tries one combination, then another, then he hears a voice, muffled through the door.

“Hyung!”

His shoulders relax. It’s Bambam, probably having shaken Jackson and now looking for him to help out.

“In here!” he doesn’t turn around, putting his full focus on the safe, trying to make sense of all the numbers. It isn’t unusual that the first few combinations he tries don’t work- Jaebum’s a lot better at this safecracking business than he is. 

The door swings open from behind him and Mark barely glances over his shoulder, expecting to see Bambam, asking him to hurry.

Then he freezes, because what he does see is a gun barrel, pointed dangerously close to the side of his head.

Holding his breath, Mark very cautiously raises his hands from the safe, lifting his eyes beyond the barrel, running over a thousand scenarios in his head. His eyes widen once they land on the person wielding the gun currently pointed at his face.

“ _Bambam?_ ”

The gun clicks softly in “Bambam’s” narrow hands, the boy’s usually cherubic face twisted into a snide kind of triumph, large eyes alight with a cruel mischief as he reaches behind him. Mark’s distracted as there’s a shadow, and then a bodily thump, as someone collapses onto the sticky floor from behind him.

The real Bambam’s eyes flash up to Mark’s in terror once, mouth and hands bound, and the gravity of the situation hits Mark like a sledgehammer. But by then, it’s too late, and the boy standing in front of Mark now shifts the focus of the gun with lightning speed, pointing at his twin and shooting without taking his eyes off the older man.

The light in Kunpimook’s eyes go out once the bullet goes through his brain, blood splattering across the greying tiles, and the building gives a violent jerk- the tiles crack and water starts to spray from the taps.

_That’s it, the dreamer’s dead, we’re out of time._

Mark’s been in this situation before, he knows how much time he has after the dreamer dies and how these few minutes can prove to be the most vital in a job, but even in the chaos Bambam’s doppelganger hasn’t lost focus for one second. His almost mocking gaze directs Mark to the bathroom mirrors, now cracking and covered in the spray of water.

Except now Mark isn’t looking at some wiry, angelic nineteen-year-old boy anymore, and his eyes flick back at once, gut burning in shame that he’d forgotten this in the entire scheme of things.

Jackson smirks down at him, a scornful, hostile smile, before pressing the gun to Mark’s forehead, and the older man can barely hear the words that follow after that.

“Time to wake up.”

Then with a loud  _crack_ , he’s out.

*

Jaebum dubs it Mark’s Eternal Shame. Mark is pissed, not only because he now owes Jaebum twenty bucks, but also because Jaebum had been right and would bring this incident up in every future argument they have for forever and a few more lifetimes.

Bambam sinks into a depression, thinking it’s his fault they failed, and Mark is stuck in the office for two nights wearily reassuring the younger boy that it  _isn’t_ , people make mistakes all the time, Jaebum had made especially many, etc. etc.

Oh yeah. Also, Jackson joins the team. Which is possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to Mark.

(The only reason why Mark doesn’t go on strike is because meeting Jackson is also possibly the best thing that has ever happened to him. Not that he’d ever say this out loud before cutting out his own tongue, but you know.)

*

Before this proceeds any further, some background would probably be appreciated. See, dream-sharing, according to Jaebum, anyway, is an  _art_. He’s the one with the vision, the talk, the one who’s going to lead them all into battle and out the other side with the glory speeches and strategies.

Mark is most unashamedly in it for the money.

They’d met in college in South Korea, both experienced in the field of dream-sharing, per se, but not so much in its applications. After sharing a short stint in attempting to further the boundaries of dream sharing and testing its limits, Jaebum had left for Paris, to study architecture, while Mark went home to California.

Then one fine day Jaebum had called, hesitant and rather reluctant, with a business proposal, of sorts. And so the world of extraction had been opened up to Mark.

By the time he got back to Korea, Jaebum had taken Bambam under his wing, a bright but inexperienced liberal arts student, who’d had more than his fair share of brushes with the, for lack of a better word,  _illegitimate_  side of dream-sharing back in Thailand. Bambam had loads of contacts, though mostly foreign, and knew how to sniff out low-level jobs better than both of them did combined.

They’d split up at first- joining other teams to scavenge some experience in the field before attempting to do anything on their own, but their first mission together as all three of them had rocketed them to success.

Looking back years later, now, with a rather spotless track record under his name and a bank account total to prove it, Mark decides he’s satisfied.

That it, until Jackson comes along.

*

Jackson is everything Jaebum painted him to be, except with a lot more personality and sass than required in the job description. Like, a  _lot_  more.

(Mark thinks it suits him, but you didn’t hear this from him. Really.)

He’s the best forger Mark has ever met, in his ten years of (legitimate) experience in dream sharing, countless identities stolen and memorised and notched on his belt, female and male, young and old, all convincing enough to be real, almost. But things are rarely real, not in their line of work, and Mark’s learned to appreciate this.

“How long have you been in the business?” Jaebum asks amiably, once Jackson’s solidified his position in the team after their first successful job in the bag together, a particularly daunting case that’d typically only be offered to more experienced workers. Having a clean slate and a forger in their arsenal had probably helped a lot with holding down the job. Jackson pretends to scoff at the question, taking a thoughtless drink from the glass of Scotch in his hand.

“It all started when I was thirteen,” he seems to be starting on the premise of some great story, eyes misting over as he stares into the Great Distance. “And my father said,  _son_ -…”

“He’s lying,” Mark comments without looking up from his phone, fingers idly twirling the umbrella in his cocktail as he pokes around for their next job. “He was introduced to dream sharing at seventeen and started specialising one year later. And his family doesn’t know shit about what he actually does- they think he’s a really successful salaryman that has to fly around the world all the time so he can’t spend as much time at home as he’d like.”

Jackson doesn’t seem at all concerned that his wonderful ruse has been ruined- he looks delighted, almost. “ _Well_ ,” his eyes glint like rough diamond under the dim lights as they fixate upon him in what can only be described as curious elation. “Are you  _that_  interested in me,  _duan xiansheng_?”

Something prickles in Mark’s gut at the confidence of the Mandarin syllables, marred rather attractively by the lilt of a Cantonese accent, so he turns to indulge him with a glance, for the first time, while Bambam looks on with great interest and Jaebum signals for the bill to be brought over.

“Well, you’d have to actually  _be_  interesting in the first place,” he replies coolly, and Bambam cheers silently, wriggling in excitement on his seat. “So I guess not.”

“Hey, cool it, we need both of you to be alive for the next job,” Jaebum orders when Jackson gasps in mock hurt, as the waitress arrives with the bill, and Mark rolls his eyes, returning to his phone.

He doesn’t see it coming when Jackson suddenly slides over to squeeze himself into the booth next to him, throwing an arm that’s much too friendly for comfort around his shoulders, bumping him uncomfortably against the back of the seat.

“Don’t worry, Jaebum-hyung, we’re gonna get along  _swimmingly_ ,” Jackson grins, then, before cooing. “Won’t we, Marky-mark?”

Bambam looks more excited at their proximity than Mark’s comfortable with, and he edges away discreetly, making the hints of a face in Jackson’s direction.

“I look forward to that,” he mutters, trying to look at his phone in peace.

Jackson crows in triumph, and the waiter hurries away once Jaebum’s handed over his credit card, obviously scarred for life.

*

That was two years ago.

But this obviously doesn’t make a difference, because somehow they’ve managed to progress from that all the way to-…

“Does this make my butt look big?”

Mark cradles his face in his hands.

“I don’t  _know_ , Jackson, I’m not the one impersonating the subject’s mistress.”

They’re in the powder room of a women’s bathroom in (if he remembers correctly) Jaebum’s dream, and the eternity mirror is making Mark dizzy.

“Jackson” pouts spectacularly, in his cute sunflower dress and salon-dyed chocolate curls, wide eyes mooning in Mark’s direction to get his attention.

“But  _Maarrrkk_ ,” he whines, stomping a stilettoed foot, face scrunching up in mock tears, slender fingers balled into fists (though careful not to mess up the manicure). “I can’t mess this up! You have to help me!”

“You’re doing fine,” Mark rolls his eyes. “See, you’ve got the bimbo part entirely down.”

“So do you think he’ll like me?” “Jackson” blinks prettily, doing a twirl. “Mark  _ge_ ,” he giggles across the room. “Do  _you_  like me?”

Mark takes one look at the 165cm fake brunette female with circle lenses, heavy mascara, strappy killer white heels and perky boobs, and blanches.

“No.”

Jackson deflates, and for a moment he sees the illusion flicker, dress flickering and morphing, skin changing in patches, and feels uneasy.

“Don’t, you’re on once Jaebum gets in here,” he mutters, feeling oddly nervous. “Fine, you look great, okay? Happy now?”

“Delighted,” Jackson rolls his eyes, turning back to the mirror to primp his hair.

Mark opens his mouth, wanting to say something about he honestly prefers Jackson the way he is, without sounding like he’s reading off the script of some really bad shoujo manga, but then Jaebum strides in irritably, jerking a thumb in the direction of the door, and Mark shoves it aside for more important things at hand.

*

There are many things about the two of them Mark chooses not to think about, namely because-…well, Jackson is, simply put, everything Mark is not.

He gives his all in the job, even when it isn’t necessary, burning so bright and excited through the whole thing he’s usually exhausted by the time it’s over, whereas Mark’s honestly contented just completing his research and getting it over and done with.

But then Mark gets the details, Mark sees the tiny gaps in the firmament and actually sits still long enough to fill them in so the world won’t collapse beneath their feet (literally) once they’re in the dream.

“This is the best decision I’ve ever made,” Jaebum had commented one night over his third bottle of soju, after yet another successful mission in the bag. “The two of you are like some dream team.”

“Get it?” Jackson’d nudged Mark a little too vigorously, spilling his soju onto the coffee table in his tipsiness, grinning widely. “He said  _dream_  team.”

Bambam laughed, then, but only a little, because he’d still been sore that Jaebum wouldn’t let him go clubbing with the rest of them though he was positive he did more work than all of them combined.

*

Mark’s satisfied, almost, with the configuration- the basic any team needs, extractor, point, forger and architect, and with all the bases covered he thinks the four of them are all they’ll ever need.

But then the four of them can only stay as  _the four of them_  for so long, because Mark’s positive that Jaebum is an idiot with a weakness for cute extractors, and it isn’t long before-…

“I bet,” Jackson whispers conspiratorially as Mark opens another Excel sheet on his laptop. “Jaebum gets him in his bed by next week.”

Mark scoffs quietly into his notes, watching Jaebum (that idiot) out of the corner of his eye, appearing to be holding a serious conversation with their newest addition to the team. “That’s dumb. He’ll probably need a month, the way this is going.”

“You underestimate his charm,” Jackson raises a hand to the distance. “That passion gets all the ladies.”

“Jinyoung isn’t a  _lady_.”

Jackson snorts. “Guess we’ll find out for sure next week.”

“Can we stop talking about this,” Mark rubs his eyes. “Jackson, don’t you have  _work?_ ”

“Amateurs do  _work_ ,” Jackson puffs out his chest. “Professionals rely on their  _instincts_.”

“Shut up and go practice being a girl,” Mark shoves him out of his chair, and Jackson squawks, flapping to regain his balance, and for a moment Jaebum and Jinyoung look over, Jaebum looking slightly annoyed and Jinyoung amused.

“He’s telling you guys to stop flirting,” Jackson says seriously once he gets up, pointing at Mark.

“I was  _not_ ,” Mark hisses, shooting a venomous look over at the younger man, before sending a dry glare over at Jaebum. “Though less flirting would be appreciated.”

Jinyoung is  _definitely_  blushing when he turns back to Jaebum.

*

Jinyoung’s an extractor, just like Jaebum- he’d headed a few teams before a failed operation had cut him off from most of his previous contacts. After that he’d been tentative about starting something new, and apparently Jaebum had heard about him through several old clients he still kept in touch with.

Mark, honestly, hadn’t been happy about the idea.

“He’ll offer fresh perspectives.”

“We don’t need  _fresh perspectives_ ,” Mark says irritably. They’re alone in the office (or as alone as they can be with Jackson and Bambam listening in through the keyhole) and Jaebum is proving his assholery (according to Mark, anyway). “He’s a  _botched case_ , Jaebum. A  _failure_.”

“That was  _one case_ ,” Jaebum insists. “And who’s to say it wasn’t the fault of one of his team members? He could’ve had a careless point man, an architect who wasn’t thorough enough-…”

“You’re only defending him because you think he’s  _cute,_ ” Mark spits. “He’ll be redundant as soon he gets here, Jaebum.”

“We need new angles on the way we work around our jobs,” Jaebum doesn’t seem to be fazed by any of Mark’s arguments. “We almost lost our last case because we didn’t think the subject would react that way to our approach.”

“We’ve been doing  _fine_ , I don’t see why we need someone else,” Mark cuts in, and Jaebum swoops in for the finishing blow.

“And I don’t see why  _you’re_  so opposed to expanding the team,” he shoots right back, raising his voice by just a notch to show he’s serious. “You were kicking up the same stupid fuss before we got Jackson in two years back- look, what is your  _problem_  with letting new people in?”

“Oh, this is  _my_  problem now. Fine,” Mark fumes, heading for the door. “Whatever. Let him in. You don’t even have to audition him, seeing as he’s going to be useless anyway once he’s here.”

Bambam and Jackson are very conspicuously doing their own things once he wrenches the door open and slams it behind him, before leaving the warehouse.

It’s midnight, and Mark’s determinedly alone in his apartment, by the time anyone tries to contact him, and to his surprise it’s Jackson who texts first.

(But then again Jaebum’s a prideful bastard and Bambam’s too scared of either of them to make a move, so by omission it isn’t that much of a surprise, anyway.)

_From: Jackson_ _  
_hey r u alive u idiot__

Mark honestly doesn’t feel like dignifying that with a response, but for some reason inexplicable he does, anyway.

_To: Jackson_ _  
_no.__

_From: Jackson_ _  
_jb wants to say sorry but he’s a proud shit so ill just say on his behalf that we’re nothing without u and u gotta come back and we love you to the ends of this earth <3__

_From: Jackson_ _  
_also sorry m8 but I think he’s serious abt the new guy. we luv u come back soon <333__

*

Things are still tense between Jaebum and Mark during the few days after that, but business goes on as usual, Bambam and Jackson talking a little louder to cover up all the awkward silences in between tense but necessary dialogue. Jaebum takes pains to purposefully leave the office the moment evening falls, probably because he knows Mark will stay to work into the night.

Not everyone follows suit, though.

“What is it, though?”

Mark looks up wearily from his laptop to see Jackson propped on the other end of the table, looking with disinterest at one of the older models of labyrinths Bambam had designed when they’d first started.

“What?” Mark asks blandly, though he’s exhausted beyond belief. This job’s leaving him a little more drained than usual, but he supposes he should be grateful- more demanding jobs do pay better, after all.

“Your thing,” Jackson answers, absolutely not testing Mark’s patience. “With new people.”

 _Oh_. Mark’s honestly disappointed, if not a little hurt. Jackson had been the one guy he’d thought wouldn’t push him about this, too.

“If you’re going to start on me too-…”

“No, man, I just wanna know,” Jackson puts the model down, turning the entirety of his intense, brown-eyed gaze to Mark. “You’re okay with working with other teams, right?”

“That’s different, that’s-…” Mark sighs, wondering why he’s even entertaining Jackson’s question in the first place. It’s  _different_  with Jaebum and Bambam, and now Jackson, different in a way he can’t put into words or organise neatly into the charts and tables that cover his notes. The people he works with outside of this team are transient, occupying nothing more than a few months of Mark’s life and he knows it, he knows he doesn’t have to care. But he can’t do that, not here.

Not with them.

“…-different,” he finishes lamely.

There’s a silence Mark finds himself hoping desperately that Jackson will understand, and he realises that other than Jaebum he’s come to rely on Jackson as the one who gets him, that despite his inability to phrase his feelings into neat sentences somehow Jackson’s become the one to always listen to him anyway.

Jackson’s biting his lower lip, brow furrowed. “Why?”

Mark flinches. He’d been expecting this. It hadn’t come out particularly unkind- just curious, and that’s probably the reason why the older man bothers to respond.

“I don’t know,” he pauses, biting his lip. It’s been a while since he’s said that. “You know, they might-…they might let you down,” he struggles with the explanation. “But then it’d be your fault, because you were the one who let them in in the first place, right?”

“But they might be great people,” Jackson presses on. “You gonna pass up that opportunity to meet a great person because you’re scared they’ll let you down?”

Mark shrugs. He’s not in the mood to argue- Jaebum already tires him out on that one. “Yeah.”

Jackson presses his lips together, deep in thought, and Mark attempts to return to his work. It’s short-lived.

“Have I let you down?”

Mark blinks tiredly.

“Not yet,” he replies shortly.

He doesn’t look up to see Jackson’s response, but the sound of the other man getting up and leaving without another word leaves him feeling oddly isolated, though he did technically get the last word in the conversation.

So he shakes the thought away and continues to work.

*

Jackson ends up auditioning Jinyoung with Bambam, because Jaebum won’t let Mark, and Mark won’t let Jaebum, because they’re convinced the other will rig the dream somehow. The sting of annoyance when Jinyoung gets wind of what’s going on faster than Jackson had the last time is lessened, somehow, by the sincerity in Jinyoung’s eyes once he accepts the job offer.

It takes Mark time to get used to him, the same way it’d taken time for him to get used to Jackson, but it gets easier (sort of) once they start working together. Jinyoung is undeniably brilliant, if not slightly muddle-headed, possibly even more well-versed in the dream world than Jaebum and Mark are combined. It turns out he’d been exposed to extraction a lot earlier than any of them had- his older sister had been a forger, and they’d shared a lot of connections when he was younger.

They don’t talk about his previous teams or cases, a common courtesy they extend to any of the temporary people that fill up positions they need for a job, and eventually Jinyoung’s the one who brings the failed case up, after their second successful case together.

They’re at some high-end grill and bar on the other side of Seoul, relaxing over drinks and good food under hazy light in the evening air, and it’s Jackson’s turn to keep an eagle eye on Bambam’s alcohol intake so Mark takes the opportunity to recline in his chair, basking in the afterglow of another job well done.

Jinyoung’s uncharacteristically quiet, now, and Jaebum seems to notice, because he calls it a night much earlier than they usually would, ignoring Bambam’s protests, and goes to settle the bill, and out of the corner of his eye Mark sees Jinyoung relax a little.

Through the haze of the bar, though, he sees someone walking up to their table from behind Jackson and Jinyoung, an exceptionally tall man, hair dyed streaks of brown and blond, the expression on his face amused, at best. The moment he stops at their booth, though, leaning on his arms casually against the backrest, Mark’s hand strays to his gun, eyes narrowing.

“Park Jin _young_ ,” the man says, then, as though surprised, and judging by the way every drop of blood drains from Jinyoung’s face Mark’s suspicions are right. “Fancy seeing  _you_  here, of all places.”

“Uh,” Jackson’s looking the man up and down, the hostile edge to his voice unmistakeable. “Who are you?”

“Lee Seunghoon,” the man offers the most condescending smile Mark’s ever seen, barely bothering to hide the scorn in his eyes, and something rings a bell at the back of his mind. “And I suppose you’re the members of Jinyoungie’s new team?”

Mark isn’t surprised to realise that he knows the man- he’d come up in conversation when Mark picked up a job in Gangnam some time back. Seunghoon’s an architect, known particularly for the creative touch he adds to his labyrinths, mostly cruel and mostly effective. Mark hadn’t known he’d worked with Jinyoung before, and certainly not for the Disaster Case.

“What if we are?” Bambam sounds particularly brave when Mark tunes back in, probably because of the alcohol and probably because the rest of them are right there. “What’s it to you?”

“Darn, it’s a little hazy,” Seunghoon sends a charming grin in their general direction, but there’s something about the unforgiving steel in his eyes when he looks at Jinyoung that sets Mark off. “Why don’t  _you_  tell them, Jinyoung-ah? How you managed to blunder up one of the  _biggest cases_  of the century?” there’s a threatening edge to his voice rising, now, and the tension in the air’s so thick Mark swears he could’ve cut it with a knife. “Not all of us had aliases as conveniently as you did, did we? Not all of us could disappear off the face of this earth and escape the heat, could we?” Seunghoon seems to relax, enjoying the way Jinyoung seems completely frozen. “Hey, under the name  _Junior_ , how big is that price on your head, exactly?”

“Is there a problem here?”

Mark feels an inexplicable rush of relief- Jaebum’s striding up to them, eyes flashing in Seunghoon’s direction. He feels the tension defuse at the table in general, now that Jaebum’s back, and Seunghoon straightens, clearly understanding straight away that this wasn’t a fight he could win. Not many people are stupid enough to pick a fight with someone like Jaebum, not while the man’s sizing them up, hand flicking the edge of his jacket away casually to allow a glimpse of the Glock at his hip, and Seunghoon bows this one out gracefully.

“Not at all. See you around,  _Junior_ ,” he winks, turning on his heel, and out of the corner of his eye Mark sees a doe-eyed boy at the bar slide silently off the barstool, casting an empty look in their direction, before following him out of the restaurant.

Jaebum doesn’t seem to care about the awkward silence hanging now that Seunghoon’s gone. “Who was that?” he asks, quiet and direct, and Mark turns to look at Jinyoung, now looking more pallid than ever.

“Sorry, I just-…” Jinyoung stands, then, and Jaebum steps out of the way, while Bambam looks on in concern. He’s not looking any of them in the eye, voice shaking dangerously. “Excuse me.”

No one has any appetite after that- Jaebum disappears out after Jinyoung, and, eventually deciding that there’s nothing they can do without making things worse, Mark drives Bambam back to his apartment and Jackson follows.

It’s only on the next day, when Jaebum rounds them up for lunch before they can head off on other jobs, that Jinyoung tells the full story, though shakily and hesitating throughout. None of them interrupt- Mark senses this is something he’s been wanting to do for a long time, now.

“Our sedatives weren’t strong enough that time,” he mutters in explanation, head hung, with a sort of shame. “We weren’t able to go deep enough, so we changed track, but we weren’t well-rehearsed enough, so the subject realised he was dreaming and it was all over by then. It-…it was my fault, really, I wasn’t thorough enough with the dry runs beforehand, and I gave in when the client pushed us for the deadline.”

“Shit happens all the time,” Jackson says airily, clearing the awkward silence easily, and once more Mark is inexplicably grateful. “Just so happened you were working for some powerful-ass guy that time who came down hard on your team for the slip-up. I think we’ve been ridiculously lucky so far.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Mark adds, surprising himself, and feels oddly gratified when Jaebum eyes him in unexpected appreciat **i** on, and Jinyoung looks at him with a flash of hopeful apology, while Bambam cosies up to the extractor, chattering bright words of encouragement.

(But most gratifying of all is when Jackson slides closer, the scent of his cologne faint but dizzying, the casual arm he throws around Mark’s shoulders heavy with gratitude and pride, and something evens out between the two of them that the older man can’t put into words, but accepts anyway.)


	2. 002.

“So what’s the reason for yours?”

Mark looks over the plate of samgyupsal at Jackson, before taking a pensive sip from his champagne. They’re at Jaebum’s condominium, celebrating a job well done with grilled meat and lots and lots of nice wine (that Bambam is taking full advantage of) and by some means of witchcraft everyone’s found a reason to go indoors, leaving Mark and Jackson alone on the balcony deck chairs.

“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific,” Mark sets his glass down, before reclining on the chair, closing his eyes. He hopes he doesn’t fall asleep, though it’s not like he hasn’t crashed at Jaebum’s place countless times before, and it’s not like Jackson will go thirty seconds without blasting something in his ear anyway.

(He doesn’t know whether or not he likes the idea of those things becoming the norm. He eventually decides that he wouldn’t particularly mind if they did.)

“Your totem,” Jackson says casually, like he isn’t probing into one of the best kept secrets in the business, and Mark lets out a cross between a dry laugh and a snort, rolling his eyes under his eyelids. It’s almost  _impolite_  to ask such things, but for some reason Mark isn’t surprised at the question (probably because it’s Jackson).

“Thank you for asking me to compromise on my pivot to reality,” Mark deadpans, eyes still closed, and Jackson chuckles.

Mark startles out of a comfortable stupor half a minute later when he feels the thin chain of something metallic, but warm from body heat, press itself into his palm. He glances down to see what Jackson’s put in his hand, then jerks his eyes away instinctively, heart hammering, irritation and confusion rising like fumes to combat with the alcohol in his head, but the damage’s already been done.

“This is  _yours_ , why would you-…” Mark splutters. “Only  _you’re_  supposed to know what it looks like, now you’re going to have to get a new one-…”

“Chill, seriously,” Jackson rolls his eyes, and Mark feels indignant. That sort of (kind of) fades when Jackson turns to him with a smile, an open, soft kind of expression that makes his heart do somersaults in his chest. “I don’t show it to  _everyone_.”

“Oh,” Mark feels quite dumb. “But you can’t show it to  _me_ , I’m in the business, what if I-…”

“I trust you,” Jackson says, cutting straight through whatever else Mark’s about to say, and the older man looks over derisively, about to bite out a sarcastic  _wow thanks,_  until he sees the sincerity shining in Jackson’s eyes.

“Oh,” Mark wonders if he should record him saying that and just play it in the future for convenience. “Uh.”

“This one, it’s an heirloom, of sorts,” Jackson explains, turning the pendant over in his fingers, running a thumb over the complex engravings in the gold surface. “Passed down from my grandparents in Shenzhen and everything.”

“Heirloom?” Mark forgets himself for a moment, curious. He hesitates, unsure of how to broach the subject when it comes to this. People are sensitive about their totems- Jaebum’d been particularly prickly about his, and Bambam followed whatever Jaebum did, so Mark had sort of grown in the industry assuming totems were something of a secret shame. “Aren’t there, I don’t know. Copies of it everywhere?”

“Yeah, there would be,” Jackson lets out a laugh. “If this were the real heirloom, that is.”

Mark blinks. He feels another  _oh_  looming in the distance, and cuts it short in favour of inquisitive silence.

“See, usually stuff like this goes to the eldest in the family, so naturally my big bro got the real thing from my dad when he was ten,” Jackson says, with a sort of fondness in his eyes that makes something that feels a lot like nostalgia (and possibly homesickness) rise at the back of Mark’s throat. “And being the shitty little brat I was I couldn’t help but want one too, you know? And my dad gave me other things, clothes and toys and stuff but  _all_  I wanted was what my brother had.

“So my mom,” he laughs a little here, but it’s more of a breath than a laugh and suddenly it’s more of a sigh than a breath. “After three months of me whining and sulking and being a brat, she went out one day, and you won’t believe this,” he rolls his eyes. “She went out with my brother’s pendant to the goldsmith and asked for one  _just like it_. And it’s not even like we had a lot of money at that time- heck, we were  _poor_ , almost. And she just went out and got this for me,” he flips the pendant, and the light from Jaebum’s living room catches on one of its edges for a millisecond, making it glint, like the sparkle in Jackson’s eyes.

“Oh,” Mark really thinks he ought to get that recorded and have it on a button for ease of use next time. 

“Of course, you can’t replicate heirlooms like this so easy, though,” Jackson grins. “The goldsmith messed it up. So every time I touch it in a dream,” Jackson runs a thumb over the surface fondly. “It’s the real thing. Correct. Proper. And I know I’m dreaming, because mine’s the only defective one in existence.”

“It’s not defective,” Mark says suddenly, the most impulsive thing he’s probably ever done, so even Jackson looks over in surprise. “It’s-…it’s just different. That’s not bad. It’s unique. It’s yours.”

There’s silence for a moment, until Jackson breaks out into one of the widest smiles Mark’s ever seen.

“I don’t need it so much totem-wise anymore, though,” he grins, leaning over. “Not when I’ve got you.”

Mark stares, trying to figure out the meaning behind whatever ridiculous thing Jackson’s trying to say now. He almost reaches in his pocket to feel for his totem, check if everything’s real, but then the sliding door whooshes open and Bambam topples out, arguing loudly with Jaebum about how much he’s had to drink so far and that Jaebum’s not his dad and has no right to dictate his drinking habits, and the moment’s gone, shattered into irretrievable pieces across the floor.

Mark can’t deny he’s disappointed (what for, though, he’s got no idea) but then Jackson’s supporting Bambam and laughing at Jaebum’s disapproving father face and the younger man glances over once to throw a wink over his shoulder, before disappearing inside, dragging a grumpy Bambam along with him.

And then Mark’s not so disappointed after all.

*

“Hey.”

Mark winces. That’s a bad  _hey_. All such  _heys_  have resulted terribly in every past experience. He takes a break from sending concerned glances at an extremely hungover Bambam, and steels himself before looking over at Jackson.

“Yes,” he sighs, wondering why he’s even bothering to respond anymore.

“If you have sex in a dream,” Jackson says thoughtfully, looking completely serious. “Do you cum in real life?”

Mark draws a pained breath. “ _Jackson_.”

“Hey, legit questions, okay,” Jackson snorts. “If we’re gonna work so hard to do all this dream shit, might as well have fun doing it, right?”

“ _Fun_ ,” Mark says drily, taking his cold coffee from the table. “We have very different definitions of the word.”

Because fun in Mark’s dictionary includes spending time in solitude watching pointless cat videos and bad variety shows, but Jackson doesn’t need to know this.

“Hey,” Jackson says again. Another bad  _hey_. Two in succession square the effects. “Wanna try?”

Mark chokes on his coffee. Jackson thumps his back sympathetically.

“Try  _what_ ,” the older man eventually wheezes. “Sex? With  _you_?”

“Well, yeah,” it strikes Mark, as how oddly hesitant Jackson’s voice goes at that. He supposes he should come up with an appropriate response, but then Jaebum clears his throat loudly from the opposite end of the room.

“Cockblock,” Jackson grumbles, getting up to keep practicing, leaving Mark relatively confused and sort of relieved (but at the same time strangely disappointed).

*

He gets a text at eleven thirty that night.

From: Jackson  
_btw it’s tru man, you do cum irl_

He does a double take, before typing out a response.

To: Jackson  
_you tried???_

From: Jackson  
_nahhh I hacked our dream log_

From: Jackson  
_u noe all those “tests” jj have been doing lately_

Mark groans.

From: Jackson  
_jb’s such a hypocrite istg_

*

“Everyone is hooking up,” Bambam whines.

“Uh,” Mark studies the printer, wondering where his copy of the latest dream technology updates are and why the printer has decided to eat it. “Okay.”

“Don’t you think so?” Bambam presses on, and Mark half-nods absently, now poking all the buttons.

“Of course.”

“Isn’t it annoying?”

“Indeed.”

“ _Well_?” the younger boy demands. Mark sighs in frustration, slapping the printer.

“ _What_ , what is it, Bambam?” he grits out, opening it to check the toner. The younger boy deflates.

“Nothing.”

“And not  _everyone_  is hooking up,” Mark digs a hand into the innards of the printer. “Don’t pay attention to Jaebum and Jinyoung’s PDA. You’ve got me. And Jackson.”

Bambam snorts so loudly it echoes around the cavernous room, attracting the alarmed attention of Jinyoung, who’s standing some distance away, looking over the maze for their last job.

“What’s up?” Mark looks over, slightly disturbed. Bambam shoots him a scathing look.

“ _Nothing_ , hyung,” he says, tone dripping so heavily with sarcasm Mark feels like he’s drowning in it. “Certainly not Jackson’s dick when he looks at you.”

Mark sticks a finger in his ear, thinking some of the printer ink must’ve leaked in and gotten stuck there. “Jackson’s  _what_?”

Bambam looks stricken with disbelief.

“ _Damn_ , when he told me you were  _dense_ , I had no idea it was this bad,” he grumbles loudly, before sauntering irritably over to Jinyoung to drape over him and continue his whining.

Meanwhile, the printer finally decides to choke to life, and Mark comes to the conclusion that Bambam’s the issue, hence completely forgetting any prior conversation about any hookups whatsoever.

*

They manage to fall into a comfortable routine. As usual, especially with a bigger team, now, they break off to fill in gaps in other teams, to familiarise themselves with other people, form connections, but whenever Jaebum makes the call for another job offer they’ve received, it’s unsaid that this takes precedence, first priority over all their other jobs.

Mark sees a hint of respect in the eyes of the new people he works with, even seasoned players of the game, hears the question marks in their voices when they run through their plans with him, as if asking for guidance, feels the solidity of their confidence when they go under with him because they know he’s covered all the bases as their point. The five of them pool their contacts: Mark’s well known in Taiwan and California, now, and Bambam frequents the dream business circles in Thailand, but all of them quickly learn that no one can beat Jackson, or the thriving market for dream-stealing in Hong Kong and China wrapped up neatly in his pocket.

Mark doesn’t think much of Jackson’s history in the Chinese market until the forger comes to him with a job offer a year after they’d met, after learning Mark could speak Mandarin as well as he spoke Korean. Mark only learns how big the job is after they touch down on an illegal runway somewhere in Guangzhou, and are greeted by three stretched blacked-out limousines driven by seemingly identical, silent men in suits.

“So  _you’re_  Yi-en,” Fei, a tall, imperious looking sort of lady, with dark eyes like razors and lips painted red as blood, barely touches Mark’s palm in a handshake, her Mandarin impeccable and accentless, once he meets her in the foyer of the huge, almost mansion-like property that they’ll be working in for the next month or so. Mark thinks about Jaebum and their stupid ratty old warehouse, and tries very hard not to make a face. “Jia-er’s told us a lot about you.”

“Has he,” Mark replies, slightly uncomfortable, eyes flicking over to where Jackson’s chatting animatedly with another lady some distance away.

“We don’t usually work with new people, so I hope you’ll understand why we’re taking a smaller job this time around,” Fei gestures carelessly to the grandeur surrounding them in the lobby, and Mark wonders if she’s trying to play up her achievements or if these people are really all that great. “Though if you’ve worked with Jia-er before I suppose you’ll be able to catch up.”

“Thank you for your confidence,” Mark replies drily, returning the sharpness in her following gaze with an equally as impassive expression.

Fei breaks into a subtle smile, then, before reaching over to pat his shoulder. “I think we’ll get along well.”

It’s here where Mark learns that Jackson’s a legend in the Chinese dream-sharing market, known even in the innermost of circles with a sort of grudging respect, one of the best forgers in the business. He wonders, irritably, for a moment, if Jackson had recommended the job just to show that off to him, but Jackson doesn’t seem to even be aware of his great fame in the market- still the same old Jackson cracking lame jokes and getting excited over sexual innuendoes, except this time in a mixture of accented Mandarin and Cantonese instead of broken Korean.

Jackson does follow him to Taiwan and LA a few times, in turn, for jobs, and Mark laughs when Jackson gets sick over the strong taste of Taiwanese food and disturbed by LA weather.

“How do you  _eat_  this,” Jackson gapes, regarding his  _chou dou fu_  in distaste, drawing titters from several passing locals that he completely ignores. They’re spending the evening strolling around the night market, and Mark’s introducing Jackson to all the different unhealthy snacks peddled by noisy hawkers on the street. He hasn’t felt this relaxed in ages, he realises. “It smells like  _shit_. Literally.”

“Just  _eat_  it,” Mark comments lazily, enjoying the sight of Jackson’s suffering more than he probably should be, chewing languidly on his own stick of blood sausages.

“This is payback for that time I put chilli in your noodles in Macau, isn’t it,” Jackson blanches as he nibbles the edge of the tofu, before pulling back with a grimace.

“You said it, not me,” Mark shrugs, grinning when Jackson gingerly sniffs his fingers, and starts coughing violently.

So Mark supposes it feels good, feels great, even, branching out, learning more about the job, despite the proximity with all the people he doesn’t know, especially now that Jackson’s by his side.

But what feels even better is driving back to that old parking lot behind the convenience store that he’s used so many times that he bets his tyre marks have worn down into the asphalt, walking back into the warehouse holding a cup of coffee (a venti Americano, no cream and three sugars) and seeing Bambam look up to complain about his latest design (aka try to show off his architecture skills to anyone who’ll listen), Jaebum and Jinyoung trying very desperately not to openly flirt with each other (and failing terribly) and Jackson,  _Jackson_ , swaggering around to look over people’s shoulders and offer witty comments about their work, sniggering into Mark’s ear about JJ’s (that’s the codename Jackson had developed for them) sexual tension or loudly teaching Bambam horribly inaccurate things about Hong Kong that run vaguely along the lines of ridiculous local drama serials. Just Jackson.

(Always Jackson.)

News of their success spreads and spreads fast- Jaebum’s turning down more job offers than he’s accepting, all of a sudden, and they’re spending a whole lot more time together, preparing for whatever client they’ve got next.

Mark can’t say he minds, particularly, but the work strain’s getting worse, especially as the deadlines grow shorter and shorter with the more demanding customers. Maybe he should demand a raise.

(Or a break, but then again the word doesn’t exist in his vocabulary.)

*

“Hey.”

Mark opens his eyes. He’s staring at a load of blurry ants.

“ _Hey_.”

The ants are talking to him. He feels at his waist for a weapon. He doesn’t need his totem to know he’s dreaming.

“Whoa,  _whoa_ , hey!” a sharp jab at his side makes him jerk up, and the flapping of paper stuck to the side of his face tells him he’d fallen asleep in the office again.

(Or whatever Jaebum calls the  _office_  anyway- more like their dumpy old unlicensed warehouse where he can skip out on paying corporate taxes.)

“Ehm,” Mark peels the paper from his face, frowning when he sees that a spot of drool has smudged his writing.

“You okay? I  _told_  you you should’ve gone home with me last night,” Jackson pretends to sigh, before leaning over to leer. “Though I should add the disclaimer that you probably would’ve gotten a lot less sleep.”

But Mark’s distracted by the crinkling of something in Jackson’s hand, the smell of blueberry muffins and the fresh aroma of-…

“You brought coffee?” he croaks, and Jackson deflates a little.

“Yes, because you should stop being an idiot and locking yourself up in here every night,” he grumbles, taking a tall cup out of the plastic bag, which Mark promptly cradles in his hands, inhaling the scent of it deeply.

“You are beautiful,” he mutters, without thinking, and it’s only after his third sip that he realises what he’s just said.

He looks up, only to be met by the weight of Jackson’s scrutiny.

“What’d you just say?”

“I said the coffee was beautiful,” Mark blinks.  _Shut up and stop hammering, heart_. “Are there muffins too?”

Jackson pushes the plastic bag over, taking his own cup of coffee, as Jinyoung steps in, laughing at one of Jaebum’s stupid jokes, followed closely by aforementioned bad joker and a rather neglected looking Bambam.

“Knock yourself out.”

Then Jackson leaves to start wolf-whistling at the  ~~other~~  (there’s only  _one_ , why is he saying the  _other)_  couple in the room, and Mark feels oddly bereft.

*

“We need someone to help Mark.”

Mark looks up, slightly dazed, at the mention of his name- he’s been living off of coffee and glucose sweets for the past 72 hours and it’s making him bleary.

Jaebum’s scrutinising Jackson, who’s completely confident about the bold statement he’d just made.

“Someone else on point? Each team usually only has one.”

“Yeah, well, usually teams don’t take on jobs so often,” Jackson retorts. “We’ve been going back-to-back for the past seven months, and every time it’s Mark who’s working the hardest.”

“Maybe just a temp,” Jinyoung suggests. “Someone who won’t go into the field, necessarily, who’s just around to help Mark-hyung. With the pay we’re getting from each job now I think it’s worth it.”

“Okay, how about you ask  _him_ ,” Mark’s vaguely aware that Jaebum’s gesturing to him, and blinks. “I’m not the one hung up about getting new people in the team.”

“Mark,” Jackson’s nudging his shoulder, and he turns to see Jackson’s concerned and slightly uncertain expression. “You won’t mind someone helping out, will you?”

Mark doesn’t even remember responding, much less  _nodding_ , but then Jaebum’s looking over in serious concern and Bambam looks surprised, even.

“You should’ve told me if it was  _that bad_ , geez,” Jaebum mutters later in the day, before he makes a call. Mark makes an irritated noise at him, too tired to react otherwise.

*

“Thanks.”

Mark doesn’t indulge the look of pleasant surprise on Jackson’s face. He’s (sort of) rejuvenated after a solid twelve hours of sleep once they’d finished up with the job and Mark had banked his nice fat paycheck.

“For what?” the other man asks sweetly, all but sliding over to drape himself over Mark.

“For asking Jaebum,” Mark mutters. “One thanks is all you’re going to get, so stop milking it.”

Jackson laughs gleefully. “Don’t sweat it. You looked like shit, it was my duty as the wonderful friend in your life.”

“Wow, thanks,” Mark says sarcastically. He doesn’t push Jackson away, though- almost three years of knowing the other man has made him immune to all of his weird tendencies and habits.

“Though I have to say,” Jackson says mischievously, eyes glinting. “You always manage to look so gorgeous it doesn’t hurt to be human once in a while.”

Mark scoffs, rolling Jackson off his lap, and the other man squawks when he hits the ground.

“Yeah, like you don’t know you’re like that too,” he rolls his eyes. It only hits him after a while, what he’s said, and he wonders if twelve hours of sleep were insufficient because he’s obviously still spouting rubbish.

“Did you just,” Jackson surfaces from under the table, the look of disbelief on his face almost comical. “Call me handsome?”

“Well, yeah,” Mark can literally feel himself turning red and  _why_ , it’s not like he  _thinks_  Jackson’s good-looking-…okay, maybe he does, but it’s a fact that Jackson carries himself well, and knows his face and how to work it. He’s a forger, for crying out loud. It’s his job. “You’ve got the right proportions, and everything-…”

“Oh  _Mark_ ,” Jackson singsongs, leaping onto him and knocking his notebooks off the table. “I love you  _too_ -…”

“Gerroff,” Mark’s muffled through the fabric of Jackson’s shirt, and he’s enlightened to how pleasant Jackson actually smells (he really did not just think that).

(Bambam comes in halfway when Jackson’s trying to get Mark to say he’s sexy, too, and promptly does a 180 and walks right back out, complaining to the world that he’s surrounded by horny infatuated pricks who don’t care about his existence anymore.)

*

He doesn’t complain for long, though, because Jaebum actually holds true to his promise (for once) and Yugyeom comes into the picture.

*

Yugyeom’s the youngest by far- just a little younger than Bambam and way younger than Mark, so it’s no surprise Mark’s dubious. People like him need experience- you can be born with talent for architecture or forgery but it takes sheer hard work and grit to hold out through the amount of research he does.

They “interview” him though they don’t plan on bringing him into the field that often- just a formality, according to Jaebum, to see how well he fares in dream sharing in case they ever need him for backup.

Jaebum dies in the first two hours he goes under, followed closely by Jinyoung.

This event is later termed as “Jaebum’s Eternal Shame” by Mark, but Jaebum insists that it wasn’t fair because Yugyeom knew all of them through research before he’d even gone under, so  _it’s not counted_ , but Jackson still laughs like a hyena anyway, and Bambam looks delighted.

Yugyeom’s quiet but works hard, mostly unconcerned about whatever comes his way, very much a sideline sort of character, not unlike Mark. It’s a relief, not just because of the reduced workload, of course, but also having a kindred spirit to share his woes with when the going gets tough.

“ _No_ , look, I swear,” Jackson’s insisting one night, pointing across the table at Mark and Yugyeom, who look over amiably. “The two of them have that _gosh you all are peasants_  thing going on or something, every time I open my mouth it’s like I’m being judged.”

“You’re judged by everyone every time you open your mouth, hyung,” Yugyeom offers. “We’re honestly not that special.”

Jackson gives him an affronted look, while Mark and Bambam almost laugh themselves into tears.

*

It’s really difficult not to notice how Bambam takes to Yugyeom like magic.

Mark thinks it’s the result of years of pent-up loneliness, at first- finally having someone his age around to talk to must feel great, but then there are signs, hints of an undeniable chemistry between the two of them.

Yugyeom is dry, passive, amiable and agreeable to whatever it is that Jaebum or the others ask, slow to react but plagued by thoughts that erupt in his head like ignited gunpowder, towering over the rest of their ideas. Mark knows this because he’s felt the same, except he’s older, more respected, not required to repress his opinions as much as the younger boy is.

Bambam, on the other hand, is a brat. Intelligent and indispensable and perfectly aware of this and how to use it to wheedle whatever he wants out of the rest of them (especially Jaebum). His thoughts have more bandwidth than depth, just like his architecture- which is what makes it stable, makes it real. He goes for the  _feel_  of things rather than the integrity of them, saturates his environments through and through with the right atmosphere, be it the breathy spray of a tremendous, crashing waterfall or the prudent, compulsive tidiness of an office.

They don’t click on the surface, of course. Bambam argues with Yugyeom more than he agrees with him, most of these verbal tussles ending with Yugyeom mildly accepting whatever crazy new thing Bambam’s trying to drive towards, letting only a downwards quirk to his lips or a put-upon sigh betray any impatience or annoyance whatsoever.

But Bambam sticks closer to Yugyeom than he’s ever done with any of them, even Jaebum or Jackson, hurling insults and beaming when the younger man offers a scowl or word of dry response.

“They’re so  _cute_ ,” Jackson pretends to wipe an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye, as they watch Bambam force Yugyeom to look through his maze setup and praise his wonderful work. “The kids grow up so  _fast_.”

“Really?” Mark says, barely focusing on what he’s saying, trying not to laugh at the way Yugyeom turns to conspicuously roll his eyes once Bambam shifts his attention from him. “They kind of remind me of us.”

After three full seconds, Mark realises what he’s just said. He sticks a hand in his pocket, flipping his totem over in his hand, and curses silently when he realises they’re in reality.

To his surprise, though, Jackson doesn’t kick his mistake out into the spotlight like he usually does- instead, he feels the gentle pressure of the other man’s arm around his shoulders, the gesture almost painfully familiar by now.

“Glad you think that way,” Jackson remarks, nothing but the snide edge to his voice betraying that he’d actually registered what Mark had just said, and that’s the end of the conversation.

*

They’ve all got their hiccups as people and as team members.

Paris is off limits, for example, because a particularly painful brush with the place still made Jaebum go stiff every time they bring it up for a job. Only Bambam knows what’d happened and even he’d refused to speak about it when Mark brought it up, so Mark doesn’t particularly want to think about what’d happened there.

More than one death threat’s been sent their way because of Jinyoung, ranging from discreet deals to split the price on his head if they hand him over to near silent assaults in alleyways that are harder to get out of every time they happen.

They almost lose Bambam to a particularly rough job in Philippines’ red-light district, one day when Jaebum calls, voice tense, saying that he’d lost contact with the boy after he’d left for a private job back home. Although the underground organisation that’s holding him obviously isn’t prepared when they come for Bambam less than twenty-four hours later, Mark can’t go one minute without worrying whenever the younger man’s on his own for a job, now.

Then there’s that time in Qingdao, doing research for the Beijing job, that Jackson nudges Mark a little too forcefully to be casual, directing him to the car with bright smiles and happy words though the look in his eyes says anything but that. Mark doesn’t question, only following his lead, gut twisting in fear whilst wholly trusting Jackson because he knows the younger man knows his way around here much better than he does. It’s only when they’re on the train back to the capital that Jackson seems to relax, before muttering an explanation about a job gone wrong here three years back, and that he’d thought they were being followed.

But these are things that Mark’s come to handle, come to recognise. Major things, understandable events. So when they approach Yugyeom with the simplest request, he honestly doesn’t expect a refusal.

It’s here they learn that Yugyeom can’t build dreams. Not anymore.

They don’t ask why, not after the purposefully vague response Yugyeom had given of  _don’t know, I just can’t_ , but Mark can sense the horrors hidden neatly behind the drawn shades of his eyes when he apologises politely, saying that he’d gladly join to provide support, just never as the dreamer.

They create a messy patchwork of people, the six of them, all harbouring secrets that would otherwise haunt the rest of them day and night, jigsaw puzzle pieces of terrifying experiences broken and stowed carefully in the past, and sometimes Mark doesn’t know how to handle it the entirety of it all.

But then there are also experiences tucked away in nights like the ones where they gather regularly at Jaebum’s apartment for no reason at all, watching bad movies or eating great food or just lazing around on deck chairs on his balcony, and sometimes Mark thinks those just might make up for it.

*

Some jobs are harder than others. Jobs like these, say, when they’re running for their lives in the jam-packed rush-hour streets of Tokyo, trying to secure the hostage and lose their tail before they get to the safehouse at the same time.

The barrel of Mark’s gun digs uncomfortably into his hip for the fifth time as he turns their Porsche sharply into an alleyway. The hostage rolls, hopefully still comatose, in the backseat, and he can hear the click of a gun as Jinyoung reloads.

“I think we lost them,” he half-shouts over the rush of the wind, and Mark nods in acknowledgement, steering them into a garage.

It takes them ten nerve-wrecking minutes after they change cars to reach the office building where they’ll be working, and Mark’s barely pulled up in the underground carpark when the back door’s opened, and Jaebum’s there, face stoic but mouth drawn into a thin line.

“We’re almost two hours behind schedule,” he says, as Jinyoung slides out the back and goes around to help him drag the subject out. It’s a middle-aged man this time, supposedly the owner of one of the biggest manufacturing businesses in South Korea.

“Sorry, his security didn’t exactly give us a great time,” Mark grits out, shutting off the engine. “What happened to backup? I thought we were supposed to get help after we picked that guy up?”

“Jackson got held up back at the first rendezvous point,” Jaebum nods towards the lift lobby, where he can hear something clicking against the floor, and Jackson rounds the corner, pushing what looks like a stretcher on wheels. “We almost lost Bambam,” he mutters after that, and Mark’s jaw tenses.

“How much are we getting paid for this again?” he says darkly, helping to pull the stretcher over for Jaebum to load the subject on.

“Not enough,” Jaebum takes to the lift lobby at a slow jog, pushing the stretcher, while Jinyoung runs ahead. “You two take the stairs. Meet us at the third floor, second meeting room on the left.”

Mark finds his gun automatically in his hand when Jaebum and Jinyoung disappear into the elevator, but Jackson catches his shoulder before he can head for the stairs.

“Second elevator,” Jackson’s breathing hard. “I haven’t run this much since I was in high school, geez.”

“Wimp,” Mark mutters, but he jabs the elevator button anyway. “What happened back at the rendezvous point?”

“They boxed us in,” Jackson dabs at his forehead with his sleeve. “I think they knew what we were trying to do- escape and lose our tail and everything.”

“You crash into a blood bank on your way here, or something?” Mark’s casting glances at the red on Jackson’s hands.

The younger man takes a look at his fingers, blinking, as if just realising the blood’s still there. “No. Bambam.”

“Oh,  _shit_ ,” Mark’s eyes are wide. “What happened?”

“Bullet ripped his side open,” Jackson shakes his head, like he’s trying to forget it. “It must’ve hurt like hell for the couple of seconds I couldn’t get to him.”

They’re interrupted by the  _ping_  of the elevator arriving, and Mark goes in first, holding the door open for Jackson.

“He’s been doing this for ages, though, he can handle this, right?” Jackson’s rambling, wiping his hands against the front of his pants. Mark pushes the third floor button as the door starts to close, but then straightening instinctively at the sound of footsteps echoing off the concrete floor outside the lift lobby. “Kid’s tougher than he looks-…”

“ _Jackson_!” Mark almost shouts, shoving him out of the way of the tiny spot of red light aimed precisely at Jackson’s shoulder through the gap between the lift doors, gun already pointed and ready to fire.

Mark’s proud to note that he manages to catch the offending guard square in the chest with the two bullets he lets fly before the lift doors shut, separating them, and lift starts to move up jerkily.

He isn’t as proud when he starts to register the slow burn spreading outwards from a spot on his chest, and looks down, noting, with dull fascination, the red blossoming gradually on his white dress shirt.

Jackson’s swearing in every language he knows behind him, turning him around, eyes horrified when he sees the wound, only to compound when Mark coughs, and blood splatters out onto the floor between them, oozing in a slick crimson trail down his jaw.

“You  _asshole,_ ” Jackson steadies Mark when he sways dangerously, and the older man vaguely registers him fumbling for his gun. “Why the  _hell_  did you do that?”

The lift door opens and Mark’s half-dragged out, collapsing onto the floor the moment they’re in the clear, coughing out another wave of blood. The bullet must’ve punctured his lung, he thinks dimly, as a white starts to cloud out his vision.

“You’re such an idiot,” Jackson’s raving somewhere, voice sounding faraway even though Mark’s quite sure he’s right there. Mark focuses on navigating his hand into his pocket, finding his totem and running a finger over it, breathing increasingly shallow and rapid, and something occurs to him.

“Hey,” he manages to half-choke, half-breathe out, as if surprised. “We’re dreaming.”

Jackson’s rants stop, and Mark sees a strange expression cross his face, already blurred around the edges, a soft frown crossed with surprise and affection, but he attributes it to a result of the piece of metal in his lungs screwing with his brain, because what else could explain that?

So it isn’t honestly that hard to convince himself that the momentary warm softness against his cheek he feels, contrasting starkly with the cold metallic edge of a gun pressed against his temple, is nothing but a trick of the mind as well.

Though when he wakes up and struggles off his reclining chair, breathing deeply to assure himself that his lung’s working and he’s not drowning internally on his own blood, that’s the first thing on his mind, embedding itself his memory like a bullet, almost.


	3. 003.

Sometimes Mark slips up.

He’s wandering through another one of Jinyoung’s labyrinths, a test for the second level of the dream, a building full of music studios that the subject had once worked in. Mark’s projections, the staff of the entertainment company, probably, mill around, girls clad in oversized graphic print shirts and tights and harried producers carrying files of documents and CDs, as if he isn’t there.

“I can’t get the layout for the dance studio right,” Jinyoung’s complaining through an earpiece from somewhere upstairs in the office levels, watching Mark through the security cameras they need to observe the subject later. “What kind of  _floor_  do they use anyway? And Bambam’s ridiculously unhelpful every time I ask for advice.”

“By ridiculously unhelpful,” Mark’s observing himself critically in the full-length mirrors of the room- the skinny jeans and white tank top he’s wearing make him feel uncharacteristically liberated (and possibly self-conscious). “You mean he’s trying to get details about your love life with Jaebum, right?”

“We do  _not_ ,” Jinyoung snaps, probably flushing madly. “Have a  _love life_. Focus on the task at hand, hyung.”

“Wait, you don’t?” Mark’s rather enjoying himself. “All those nights holed up in the office on the PASIV, then-…”

“We’re doing  _tests_. Important tests.”

“ _Sure_ ,” Mark’s grinning, but it’s undeniable he feels an odd sort of emptiness, recalling the way Jinyoung and Jaebum look at each other all the time. He can’t describe the look in their eyes- a quiet sort of confidence, automatic trust, tinged with concern and affection built over hundreds of secrets shared between the two of them, and for one wild, crazy moment, he’s envious, almost. “Tests. Of course.”

“Dance floor,” Jinyoung says firmly. “Does it look legit.”

“Why are you asking  _me,_ ” Mark scoffs, barely turning around to look at the sound of the door opening behind him. “Not like I’m some famous pop group dancer-…oh, Jackson?”

It isn’t uncommon for Mark to project the rest of them into the dream, mostly by accident, especially when he’s relaxed or focused on other things at hand. He’s proud to note most of his projections are ridiculously close to the real thing, especially Jaebum and especially when it comes to his nagging, but it’s awfully compromising at the same time. Jackson had spoken with Mark’s projection of Bambam once and come to the disturbingly accurate conclusion that Mark thought the boy was overly whiny, and the architect hadn’t spoken to him for a week.

“Hey Jackson,” Mark grins anyway, knowing that projection-Jackson would stick up for him for sure. The man’s walking towards him, looking oddly comfortable in a baggy black tee and jeans, snapback on front side back, a ridiculously attractive half-smirk on his face. “Jinyoung says he and Jaebum don’t have a  _love-…_ ”

He trails off, noting that Jackson hasn’t stopped walking, and takes an instinctive step back, voice a little more uncertain. “…-don’t have a love life-…”

And Jackson cuts him right off by reaching to curl an arm around the back of his neck, pulling him closer, before fitting their lips together in a kiss.

One and a half seconds after Mark gets over the shock and assures himself he isn’t going to get an aneurysm and die on the spot, he realises that Jackson’s lips are very nice to kiss. Then he wishes he’d had an aneurysm, because that is  _not_  what he wants to be thinking about Jackson’s lips.

Jackson is a co-worker. A business contact. A friend. And Mark shouldn’t think his friend’s lips are nice to kiss.

He’s enlightened, then, to the fact that Jinyoung is screaming at him through the earpiece sentences running vaguely along the line of  _you freaking hypocrite_  and  _how are you guys not dating_  and  _you had the gall to bring up my love life_  and Mark shoves projection-Jackson away, telling himself to ignore the look of shock and hurt that crosses the man’s face.

_He’s a projection. He’s not real. Jackson wouldn’t kiss you, would he?_

Mark repeats that phrase as a mantra in head as the world starts to dissolve, fading into an inky blackness as time runs out on the PASIV, and he opens his eyes.

Jinyoung’s looking at him with a cross of the most surprised and smug expression he’s ever seen when he blinks awake, and it takes the promise of a week’s worth of Starbucks and that he’ll never tell Bambam what he’d seen on the dream log before the younger man agrees not to drag Jackson over right away and tell him what he’d seen.

*

It gets progressively worse over the next few weeks.

Now that Mark knows what Jackson’s kisses feel like, it’s all he can think about every time he dreams. And apparently Jinyoung’s caught wind of that, because he’s finding all sorts of excuses for people to bring Mark into their dreams.

It’s impossible to go one dream now without bumping into Jackson once and being dragged into liplock sessions of increasing durations, and the worse part? Mark honestly can’t say he minds.

Which isn’t right, because Mark doesn’t think Jackson wants to kiss him, and he shouldn’t want Jackson to kiss him either, right?

_Right?_

It’s getting progressively harder to maintain that notion when every dream (and hence every kiss) sends him spiralling further into this crazy idea that he might just be in love with Jackson.

The days consist of almost religiously avoiding Jackson in every dream, asking for a kick as soon as possible, flipping the totem in his pocket over and over again every minute to convince himself of what’s real and what’s nothing but a dream.

And apparently that’s translating into his behaviour in real life too, because-…

“Hey, did I do something?” Jackson asks one night, and Mark’s unsettled by the degree of hurt in his voice. He presses a finger to his totem, swearing silently when he confirms this is reality.

“What? No,” Mark rearranges his notes compulsively, fingers cold with anxiety. “No, you didn’t do anything.”

 _You certainly didn’t kiss me_. _Not in reality anyway._

“Hey, if something’s wrong,” Jackson’s frowning. “You know you can just tell me, right?”

“Sure,” Mark nods, making sure not to meet Jackson’s eyes as he attaches a paper clip to a stack of papers. "I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Or- or tell Jaebum or something, I don’t care, just-…don’t keep it in,” Jackson presses on uncomfortably. “Are you sure? That there’s nothing wrong, I mean.”

“Yes,” Mark can’t help the hint of urgency in his voice. His knuckles are white around the sheets of paper. “Everything’s fine.”

He keeps his back to Jackson until he feels the other man finally leave, before deflating onto his chair, hands clammy and heart thudding a marathon in his chest.

*

“You know, hyung,” Yugyeom comments over his shoulder a few days later. “Projections of our subconscious reflect our desires with respect to the people around us.”

Mark takes one second to absorb the full meaning of what the maknae’s just said, before turning around in his chair, murderous.

“I am going to  _kill_  Park Jinyoung-…”

“So it’s true,” Yugyeom raises a brow, looking amused, and Mark blinks, understanding what the younger man’s just said.

“Wait, he didn’t tell you?”

“Well, with the way you’re acting around Jackson-hyung, it’s obvious enough, honestly,” Yugyeom rolls his eyes. “That and Bambam saw you two making out during his last test run.”

Mark collapses into his chair, cradling his face in his hands. “ _Shit,_ ” then looking uncertainly over, in a smaller voice, “don’t tell him, okay?”

“Hyung,” Yugyeom says firmly. “You have to settle this with him. You can’t keep avoiding him like this, you know that, right?”

“I can and I will,” Mark deflects the statement, making as though to return to his work.

He’s literally spun around in his chair by Yugyeom, and grips the armrests in shock, leaning back instinctively.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Yugyeom says seriously. “I told Bambam not to interfere but I had no idea it was this  _bad_ , hyung, can’t you tell he’s completely in  _love_  with you?”

“I’m  _not_ -…wait, what?” Mark scrambles to wrap his mind around what Yugyeom’s just said. “No. What? He is?”

Yugyeom looks incredulous. “Hyung, he buys  _coffee_  for you. He disturbs you on an hourly basis to make sure you stay talking to all of us. He keeps his side of the table clean, and this literally  _pains him_ , so you don’t haemorrhage all over his mess. You’re the only one out of the five of us he hasn’t ever tried to impersonate because he knows he’ll never be able to do you justice. If you’ve spoken with his projection of Jaebum you’ll see he’s a total jerk because Jackson-hyung’s jealous of how close you are to him. And this week he’s been following you around like a  _kicked puppy_  while you avoid him because all you can dream about is making out with him.”

Mark thinks he’s having difficulty breathing. “That doesn’t mean he’s in  _love_  with me.”

“And Jinyoung-hyung and Jaebum-hyung aren’t totally smitten,” Yugyeom sighs. “Hyung, you’re totally in denial.”

“I heard  _love_  and  _denial_  several times,” to Mark’s horror, Bambam struts over enthusiastically. “Has Mark-hyung finally discovered his major crush on Jackson?”

“I’m  _not_ ,” Mark stresses, voice lowered, looking around nervously for Jackson, noting thankfully that he’s on the other side of the warehouse. “Besides, he probably doesn’t even like me that way.”

Both Bambam and Yugyeom scoff simultaneously. It’s extremely demeaning.

“We understand this is some big news for you to take, hyung, but it’s honestly about time,” Bambam rolls his eyes.

“Watching your mating rituals for the past year was funny, but it’s getting painful now,” Yugyeom adds. “You have to settle this with him somehow.”

“Both of you are unbelievable,” Mark’s sure he’s flushing from head to toe right now. “As if  _he’ll_  ever-…”

“So do cold shoulder privileges only apply to those born after a certain year, or,” Mark stiffens instinctively at the weak laugh from behind him- Bambam disappears back to his table after a meaningful look in Mark’s direction (that brat) and Yugyeom turns back to his work pointedly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mark says shortly, straightening his notes out.

After a pause that stretches too long, Yugyeom’s chair squeaks as he turns around.

“Mark-hyung’s feeling a little sick,” he offers. Bambam coughs out something that sounds suspiciously like  _lovesick_  from his bench, and Mark makes a mental note to photoshop his face onto hamster bodies later. He sneaks a glance back at Jackson, but the other man hasn’t moved an inch.

“Why didn’t you say?” he feels a gentle nudge in between his shoulder blades, hears the frown in the other man’s voice.

His heart rate takes an unhealthy spike as warm hands press against his forehead from behind and against the side of his neck, and jerks away instinctively.

“Jackson-…” he’s standing, suddenly, breathing heavily, trying not to look the other man in the eye. “Look, just-…I don’t know, just  _don’t_ , okay?”

 _Because I don’t think I’d be able to hold back if you do_.

The look in Jackson’s eyes manages to make everything ten times worse than it already is (and that’s saying something) and Mark feels something bitter rise at the back of his throat.

“Okay,” Jackson takes a step back, hands falling limply to his sides. “Okay.”

Then, after what feels like an eternity, the other man turns stiffly, and walks back to his table, shoulders hunched, and Mark feels like the world’s biggest asshole.

Yugyeom’s got a point.

*

Mark convinces himself that it isn’t just because of whatever it is that’s happening to him- he needs to fix their work dynamic, needs to straighten things out between them because it’s not Jackson’s fault this is happening, not any of theirs, and he can’t screw things up just because of some stupid dreams he’s been having.

So he prepares the most elaborate explanation in his head (something along the lines of a long-forgotten burden held in his heart related to the time his brother had stolen his packet of chocolate milk and how his best friend in LA could never appreciate his love for cat videos) and plots out a great time to take Jackson aside and explain how this was all some great misunderstanding, and his appreciation if they could just go back to the way they were before this.

It’s a great plan. Except it isn’t, because that isn’t what he really wants at all.

(Mark manages to ignore that part, though.)

So he decides that by the end of this week, everything should go back to normal, and if he does happen to keep thinking Jackson’s lips are nice to kiss, well, that secret’s going to stay what it is- a secret.

*

Mark slumps back against the wall of the near deserted building complex, rubbing his eyes tiredly- he can’t remember which test this is, but he’s tired and grumpy and nervous and all he wants is for time to finally run out on the PASIV so they can go home.

He reshuffles his notes in his hand, tugging a pen out of his pocket blankly and trying to remember what it is he’s supposed to be observing, when he hears footsteps rounding the corner, and tenses instinctively, hands gravitating towards the gun at his waist.

When a familiar shape appears, barely visible in the dim light, though, Mark relaxes, sighing softly.

“They want us back at base,” projection-Jackson says, and Mark nods tiredly. His shoes scrape the cracked cement, kicking up clods of dirt, and he takes a moment to marvel inwardly at the detail Bambam’s put into this latest dreamscape, despite the fatigue.

Jackson draws a little closer, then, and Mark barely looks up, used to this ritual by now. He doesn’t even wait for Jackson to make the first move, instead stepping forward and winding his hands around the other man’s upper arms, pulling him closer, pressing his lips to his.

It takes a little longer for projection-Jackson to start into movement against him this time. Maybe his subconscious knows that reality-Jackson hates him too, and is starting to reflect that. Mark shivers at the thought of reality-Jackson ever seeing this, which pretty much translates into reality-Jackson hating him for life.

He pulls away, registering, with a little confusion, the wholehearted surprise on Jackson’s face. This is new. He wonders what it is in his subconscious that would result in this new development, before deciding it’s too late to think about this now and all he wants to do (ironically) is to wake up and go home.

“Mark?” Projection-Jackson says, a little uncertainly, then, and there’s something uncomfortably real about the way his large eyes are fixed on him in puzzlement, the way he’s leaning away ever so slightly, and Mark’s hand instinctively goes into his pocket even though he’s quite sure this can’t be-…

His fingers close around his totem, and his eyes widen.

“Oh  _shit,_ ” Mark stumbles back, hands reaching up to wind into his hair, everything he’d planned in his head going to complete shambles. He’s scrambling desperately for all the rules-  _did you remember how you got here? Doesn’t anything seem strange? Do the people ignore you?_  “Shit shit shit  _shit_ I am so  _sorry-…_ ”

That’s it, he’s done for, he’s  _dead._

Reality-Mark has just kissed reality-Jackson and is now doomed to a lifetime of isolation on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere to reflect on his terrible mistake and now Jackson’s striding up to probably kill him or demand an explanation-…

And then suddenly they’re kissing again and Mark honestly has no idea how things have led to this.

“You’ve no  _idea-_ ,” Jackson grits out against his lips, and  _wow_ , that’s an entirely new sensation Mark’s subconscious was not aware of before. “How  _long-…_ ” the way Jackson’s blunt nails dig shallow creases into the fabric of Mark’s shirt are making him dizzy in ways embarrassingly unspeakable. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”

“Wait,” Mark chokes out, partly due to shock and partly due to the way Jackson’s kissing up the side of his neck. “Wait, you  _wanted_ that?”

“You,” Jackson says after a lengthy pause. “Need to stop talking.”

“But  _when-…_ ”

Mark is gladly interrupted by aforementioned kissing, and when they part next, gasping for breath, he’s formed a thesis statement acknowledging that he thinks Jackson’s lips are exceptional for kissing, and that Jackson might just possibly feel the same way about his.

*

(Jaebum’s the first one to realise, of course- but at least he’s polite enough to just raise a brow when Mark and Jackson get back late for debrief, slightly breathless and ragged, and Mark stutters out an excuse about forgetting the time.

Jinyoung hides a knowing smile behind a stack of notes three days later when Jackson accidentally calls Mark  _babe_  whilst passing him a folder of photos, thankfully quiet enough so the maknaes don’t hear, and Mark’s furious with him for forty whole minutes, until Jackson presents a peace offering of the older man’s favourite coffee and all wrongs are grudgingly forgiven.

Yugyeom doesn’t even seem surprised when he walks in on Jackson pressing kisses on Mark’s cheek one evening, just snickering and retrieving his files from his desk beside Mark’s, while the older man flushes madly, with a teasing warning of  _don’t make me have to run a blacklight over my desk later, hyung_ , which just makes the blushing worse.

No one, however, can beat Bambam, who shouts out clear from all the way on the other side of the warehouse a triumphant  _HAH_  when he apparently catches the way Mark’s standing behind Jackson at his desk, absently carding his hands through Jackson’s hair, before walking out with his models of the newest dreamscape with an extremely pleased look on his face.

Mark hates all of them, really, he does. Which, according to Jackson, in Mark-speak, means he loves them all to the ends of this earth. Because he can’t hate anyone more than he hates Jackson.)

*

“Those  _weeks_  of avoidance, though-…” Jackson starts indignantly.

“Eleven days and ten hours,” Mark corrects, flicking on the lights in his apartment. It’s amazing, how long it’d taken after the accidental (it was destiny, Jackson insists) kiss for Jackson to invite himself over to Mark’s house. The younger man had gone oddly silent when Mark brought it up in the car, mumbling something about  _didn’t know when you were ready_  into the window and Mark had felt oddly touched.

Now, though, Jackson ignores him.

“ _Weeks,_  if you’d just  _told me_  it was because of this we could’ve avoided all that-…”

“This isn’t exactly something you can just  _tell,_ ” Mark gripes, thoughtlessly plucking a bottle from the wine rack as he walks into the dry kitchen. “Why didn’t  _you_  tell me, then, since you’ve apparently been sitting on this for  _ages_?”

Jackson swells, opens his mouth, then deflates grumpily, flopping back down on Mark’s couch and somehow messing up all the cushions at once. “That is a point.”

It’s a miracle, how Mark doesn’t even bat an eyelash at that- he has a feeling progressively more of his apartment’s going to mess itself up in a circular radius starting from the couch, from now on.

“Hey.”

Mark turns around, narrowing his eyes, hands pouring two glasses of Scotch on their own accord. He’s rather mastered the art of multitasking like this, especially when he’s an adult thrust upon with the Responsibility of Jackson.

Jackson looks both thoughtful and hesitantly hopeful at the same time, and Mark runs a list of all the worst things Jackson might ask him for.

“Nothing involving public indecency. Or Bambam and Yugyeom. Or Jinyoung, unless being smote by Jaebum is high on your list of priorities.”

Jackson makes a face. “You think so poorly of me.”

“I wonder why,” Mark rolls his eyes, picking up the glasses and heading to his couch, where Jackson’s draped. “Surely it can’t be that track record or prior experience.”

“Really,” Jackson insists earnestly. “This one’s good, I promise.”

“We have very different definitions of the word,” Mark hands a glass over, but nods, indicating he can continue anyway.

“You know,” Jackson takes a sip from his glass, obviously distracted. “About those, uh,  _tests_  Jaebum and Jinyoung were doing. I was wondering, you know, if you’d wanna-…”

“No,” Mark says firmly, plucking the glass from Jackson’s hand and setting both cups on the coffee table. “I am not stepping foot into another dream unless it involves work for a  _long time_ ,” and Jackson looks comically disappointed, until Mark tugs his face towards him, leaning forward to kiss him until the frown melts from his face. “Besides,” he murmurs against the side of Jackson’s mouth, flushing a little at the thought of what he’s about to say. “Reality’s a lot better, if you ask me.”

Jackson’s got a cross between a smirk and a beam on his face when he pulls away, and Mark feels both annoyed and inexplicably happy.

“If you say so,” Jackson grins, pulling him in for another kiss, hands curling around his hips. “I know a lot of things we can do right now that are  _better_.”

 _Oh,_  Mark thinks, then, because he’s learning new things every day about Jackson and one of them is that Jackson’s fingers are as good as his lips at making him  _feel things_.

“Okay,” he gasps when Jackson runs his hands in teasing trails down his back, while he delves into the pockets of Jackson’s blazer as he helps him shrug it off, fingers bumping against the circular pendant he’s come to know as well as Jackson does, and a quick check is enough to quell all doubts about the state of reality. “Okay, okay.”

 _Yeah_ , Mark thinks blissfully, then, as Jackson starts to pepper butterfly kisses down the nape of his neck, strong fingers making quick work of his shirt buttons.  _Who needs dreams when you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted in reality, anyway?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would like to declare that i am not a nerd
> 
> also this was absolutely self indulgent and a sequel is supposed to be coming out with baby youngjae but this could be in the far far future
> 
> comments will be loved :)


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